


We All Die Alone

by HomeForImaginaryFriends



Series: MatsuTen Week 2019 [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Character Death, Dystopia, Everybody Dies, Heavy Angst, M/M, Morbid, just putting that right in there, so no one say I didn't warn you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 05:46:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17677556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomeForImaginaryFriends/pseuds/HomeForImaginaryFriends
Summary: Tendou just wants to show Matsukawa some trees before he dies.





	We All Die Alone

**Author's Note:**

> MatsuTen Week 2019  
> Day 4, 02/02 - Angst  
> Dystopia

Tendou fell to his knees as the full force of exhaustion and starvation hit him.  He let out a wheezing cough, scrambling to grab the bundle he had dropped but his hands did not seem to want to cooperate with him.  He didn’t know how long he had been walking with the heavy burden tossed over his shoulder, weighing him down and making his slow trek all that much slower.  His knees hurt, probably bruised if not cut up from the sudden fall, but it was just another ache to add to his long list of pains.

 

Something shifted in the corner of his eye but he continued to stare down at his heavily calloused hands.  His long spindly fingers were stuck in a claw position from holding onto his bundle for hours at a time. There were pins and needles running from his fingers up through his arms, feeling slowly returning to limbs long since gone numb.

 

“You could leave it here.”  Matsukawa’s voice was like a cool breeze, soft and gentle with just a hint of rasp lacing through it.  Tendou was afraid to look at him, to see if the other man looked as bad as Tendou felt. He didn’t want Matsukawa to suffer anymore, he didn’t want to put him through anymore pain than he had already gone through.

 

“I have-” Tendou’s throat seized as he bent at the waist, clutching at his stomach as he coughed until he was dry heaving.  Matsukawa’s figure leaned closer, hands hovering as if he didn’t know whether touching or not would make things worse.

 

There had been a point in Tendou’s life where he abhorred the casual touches some people took great comfort in.  Nothing had been soft or gentle in Tendou’s life for quite a while, and if it was then it had always come with a price far too high.  Others talked about how the world used to be, the spreading greenery and the copious amount of people going about their lives. Tendou wasn’t sure about all that, he had been born after the world had gone to hell several times over.  Now it seemed like the Earth was taking its last breath, slowly imploding in on itself and making sure its last days were as unpleasant for those still left alive as it was for itself.

 

Tendou had chosen a solitary existence by the time he was a teenager.  There was no kindness left in the world and it had made sure the scrape any childish innocence out of Tendou.  He spent his time digging through the rubble, trekking through long abandoned and crumbling cities fo the past.  He had been alone for many years until he met Matsukawa.

 

Matsukawa Issei.  Tendou had threatened to kill him if he came near, so Matsukawa kept his distance but followed Tendou like his own personal shadow.  Matsukawa had grown up in the same world Tendou had but somehow it hadn’t beaten the kindness out of Matsukawa in the same way it had done to Tendou.  The man had been aloof and distant at first, nothing Tendou said or did seemed to phase him even when Tendou had gotten particularly nasty. In many ways, after months of being shadowed, Tendou had grown used to the other man's quiet presence, had started to depend on it.

 

Until one day Matsukawa hadn’t been there when Tendou woke up.  Tendou had hightailed it out of the rusted city, thinking it was his chance to finally lose Matsukawa.  As quickly as he had left he had returned, he denied it was concern driving his motives and said it was merely curiosity.  He didn’t care about Matsukawa, really he didn’t.

 

“You need to rest, get something to eat.”  Matsukawa’s voice brought him back to the present.  Tendou stared down at his hands. His veins had always been visible but now that they had turned black they were even more visible.

 

“You and I both know that won’t help.”  Tendou felt around for his bundle, trying hard not to look at it or Matsukawa or anything really.

 

“You don’t have to do this.”  Matsukawa said but even his voice sounded resigned as Tendou hefted the bundle over his shoulder, nearly tipping sideways before righting himself.  Tendou wasn’t any sort of medical professional, he wasn’t even sure if those still existed in this new world. But he knew the signs of a dying man when he saw them, or felt them.

 

“You deserve to see trees.”  Tendou rasped out, forcing one foot in front of the other.  There wasn’t much nature left in the world, or at least the part that Tendou had been walking through.  He had stumbled upon a small gulley with a couple trees and some grass. He hadn’t cared about it much except to sleep on something that wasn’t hard concrete, but Matsukawa had never even seen a tree before.

 

“I thought you didn’t even like me.”  Matsukawa stated, voice as flat as always but Tendou knew without even looking at the other man that he was teasing.  Tendou wanted to sob except he knew there wasn’t enough water in his body to produce tears. There was no time to cry in this world, a useless childish habit most people break themselves out of at a fairly young age.  Tendou had cried when his mother had been taken from him and then not again until a few days prior.

 

“I don’t.”  Tendou said because it was better than the alternative, than admitting what he had allowed himself to feel, the vulnerability that came with it.

 

Matsukawa continued to follow after Tendou, to his left and slightly behind him like his ever-constant shadow.  They talked very little, it was getting more and more difficult to do much of anything for Tendou but he just had one last goal before he allowed himself to succumb to illness.

 

When Tendou finally allowed Matsukawa to come closer he had asked why Matsukawa had followed Tendou around even after he was threatened with bodily harm.

 

“I don’t want to die alone.”  Matsukawa said with a shrug, tone as deadpanned as always but his knee had hesitantly touched Tendou’s.  Tendou had stiffened from the contact before allowing himself to relax. He supposed touch wasn’t so bad, not when the price Matsukawa was asking for seemed so low.

 

“Idiot,” Tendou had snorted, slurping up the rest of his mystery-in-a-can before chucking the can away.  “We all die alone and I won’t mourn you passing.”

 

“You don’t have to mourn, just be there.”  Matsukawa shrugged, unbothered as always before handing Tendou his half finished can.  Tendou ate it without question.

 

What a moron Tendou had thought himself above all basic human emotion just because he had spent nearly a decade by himself.  Now he was dying and trying to show Matsukawa a bit of greenery so he could die knowing he did at least one thing right.

 

Tendou collapsed once more, another coughing fit attacking him as he crashed to the ground.  All strength drained out of his body as he hacked up something that resembled tar.

 

“That can’t be good.”  Tendou had meant to say that but all that came out was a couple heavy pants and a low groan as he curled up on the ground.

 

“It’s alright, I can see the trees from here.”  Matsukawa sat next to Tendou, eyes looking down instead of in the distance.  Somehow Tendou knew the other was lying but he allowed himself the small comfort that he had done something right.  There would be no getting up for Tendou, no resting to gather strength for later. He knew his constant struggling was nearing an end.  “I’m sorry.” Tendou couldn’t look up at Matsukawa, still too scared to see the other man.

 

“For what?”  Tendou wheezed out even though it hurt.

 

“That you have to die alone.”  Matsukawa said. Tendou reached for the bundle behind him, grasping at it blindly.

 

“I’m not alone.”  Tendou looked up into the empty air as he took hold of a stiff hand behind him.  He couldn’t look at Matsukawa, his last days hadn’t been kind to the tall and sarcastic man.  Tendou hadn’t know what he expected, Matsukawa had told him from the beginning why he had so doggedly followed Tendou around.  “I have you.” Tendou closed his eyes as it became harder to breath, some sort of liquid sloshing around in his chest and finally managing to succeed where no other injury or illness had yet.

 

“I’m right here.”  It was whispered against his ear, his own mind tricking him but he allowed himself this one thing as the pain finally, finally lessened before disappearing completely.


End file.
